Puzzling Poet

I do love Lovatts puzzles,

They keep me on my toes,

Word puzzles, number puzzles,

Anything that goes.

When first I started puzzling

It was to have some fun,

My only real ambition

To solve each and every one.

I started entering contests

And to my great surprise

I found upon my doorstep

A little booklight prize.

Then followed in succession

A voucher and a cheque,

A dictionary/thesaurus

And a lovely kitchen pack;

 

A DIY winner’s pen

And to complete the set,

The pride of my collection,

A gremlin spotter’s magnet.

I do love doing puzzles

And I really have to say,

Thank you so much Lovatts

For brightening up my day.

 

 Judith Ann Hall

Another happy (and cosy) Lovatts prize winner…

Hi Denise
Suit just arrived, looks great. My 91 year old neighbour thought I was about to go into space. I can just imagine those cold nights in the caravan in my suit.

Many thanks
Cheers
Judy

Pictured: Judy Schouten, winner of a Lazypatch Duvet Suit in Variety Puzzles #60

Can’t live without you

I’ve been meaning to write to you to thank you profusely for the $50 I received from you for a win in one of your lovely competitions!! It arrived in time to give me a lift … my beautiful husband had just been run over by a little old man parked in a disabled bay in a shopping centre parking lot! The old man shot out of the car park without looking where he was going … big dramas!! People came out of nowhere, shouting at the little old man to STOP!! The ambos arrived and the police. After a preliminary physical examination my poor husband was carted off to the Base Hospital for a more thorough examination! 5 ½ hours later, they declared there were no broken bones, just extensive bruising.

Then I had a bleed behind my right eye; they think I might have had a small stroke … but the bleed is too close to the optic nerve and the specialist said he wouldn’t go in there with laser beams blazing unless it was strictly necessary.

As I consider you a highly erudite young lady, I was quite surprised to read in one of your recent magazines, the list of countries you mentioned, that, you said, are not Christian but still have a Christmas holiday. I feel the need to let you know something: Ethiopia, one of the ‘non Christian’ countries you mentioned is actually deeply Christian. They converted to Christianity in the 1^st Century A.D. Their branch of Christianity is known as the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (Tewahedo is a Ge’ez word, meaning ‘made as one’, a belief that separated them from the Catholic Church doctrine). They have had, and still have, a very close relationship with the Egyptian Coptic Church.

My Coptic Egyptian father converted to Catholicism at the ripe old age of 12 and until his death at age 33 was completely devoted and committed to Christianity and highly conversant with both Catholicism and the Tewahedo doctrines. During WW11, Dad, who was a lawyer, a linguist and high up in the Egyptian Army, was sent (by the then British Protectorate hierarchy in Egypt), to Ethiopia as Military Governor, to hold that only African Christian bastion together, until such time as Emperor Haile Sellassie the 1^st was able to go back to Ethiopia from his exile in England at the end of the War.

I was born in 1943 and was brought up by an Ethiopian Nanny, my beloved Bouzounesh (which in Amharic means you are plentiful) and that she was!! I absolutely adored her. I grew up on stories of Kings and Emperors and Queens and Empresses; stories about the holy Christian cities of Axum and Lalibela and how the Lalibela Churches had been hand-hewn, in situ, out of solid rock and Churches in the form of huge crosses and different designs. I wear a gold facsimile of one of the Lalibela crosses around my neck.

Then there were stories of the Tabot. Tabot means ‘Ark’ (of the Covenant, that is!), which is not kept in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion as the ‘white fella’ likes to think. Legend has it that the Tabot is hidden in one of Ethiopia’s highest, most inaccessible mountains (the mountains of Ethiopia are known as the ‘roof of Africa’) out of reach of any potential marauders.

The Ethiopian priests, who more or less ruled the country, had a nasty shock in the 1700s, when a wandering Scotsman walked through the mountains to reach Ethiopia, lied to them about his ‘mission’, bamboozled them into letting him see their precious Bible and then proceeded to steal a couple of the original books (one of which is now in the British Museum, the other has completely disappeared). The priests learnt a hard lesson and hid everything else they had. To them, what they have is a treasure that belongs to God, a treasure which they have been entrusted with and they will die defending it. Over the centuries, people have tried by every means to get information out of those priests, but are met by a wall of polite silence.

Those were the bedtime stories I loved … but, when my mother had time, she told me European fairy tales. After the story telling, the entire household had to conduct a thorough investigative search - under my bed,  in the cupboard and behind the curtains - in case of hiding wolves wearing bed caps, and old gnarled witches trying to fatten me up. I couldn’t eat apples or gingerbread for years!! I was utterly terrified I would go to sleep for 100 years and miss out on everything that was going on around me, or be eaten – talk about traumatising a child!!

Also, in the Lebanon Christian community there are Maronites - a very large contingent of them - quite militant too! No self respecting Muslim would go up against them, or stop them from celebrating Christmas. They’ve had many Christian heads of State, in fact, the Christians there don’t have half as many problems as the poor Christians in Egypt do.

My mother wrote a book about Ethiopian Christianity. She was the only white woman ever to be awarded the Star of Ethiopia by the Emperor, a great honour. Mum was secretary to Emperor Haile Sellassie for 35 years, until the communist hordes overran the country and kept the old Lion of Judah, as the Emperor was known, under house arrest in a small hut, until he died of hunger, thirst and cold. My mother was abducted from her home, tortured, humiliated and abased for hours on end; they were trying to get information about the royal family out of her. She never said a word. God only knows what they did to her, because my very Catholic, Catholic mother, went home and tried to commit suicide. She was found by concerned friends who were able to save her life.

I have one more thing to tell you: the Ethiopians call their country Addis Abeba (pronounced ah beh bah, which means flower). Addis means new, so, when they decided to make it their new Capital City, they named it New Flower. For some reason, the Arabs had problems pronouncing Ah beh bah and called it Ababa … which in Amharic means Father – the ‘A’ before baba could be translated into the affectionate daddy (it’s baba for father in Arabic too). So now we’ve got a country called New Father, or New Daddy!! Heh heh!! For those of us who speak Amharic we find it hilarious.

Ok, in case you suffer from insomnia, my lengthy letter could become your soporific!!

Thank you Christine, to you and your team for your wonderful magazines, your amazing puzzles and your hilariously funny clues in the cryptic; just couldn’t live without you! You are the very spice of my life, my little ‘toccasana’!

You keep me sane Christine – although sanity is not one of my better known attributes.  Thank you endlessly Christine.

May your year be full of wondrous events, full of love and laughter and well-being, full of good friends and sunshine and may God keep you safe for all those of us who love you so, and rely on you for keeping us on our toes and our brains fully functional.

I send you lots of love and deep squashes.

Mrs Claudette D’Amato
Bucasia, Qld

Puzzler or Puzzlor?

Hi,

With words ending in either ‘er’ or ‘or’, is there any rule which determines which is the correct usage?

Or is it merely happenchance like so much of our language?

Third Time Lucky!

Thank you very much for my third win on the “Large Print Crosswords” competition! What’s even luckier is that I have received a different prize every time - first was the Collins Large Print Dictionary, second was the Collins Large Print Dictionary & Thesaurus (’cos you’d run out of the dictionaries, lucky me!) and this time, I received the Oxford Large Print Dictionary, another different publication! Doubly blessed - three wins of three different books, thank you so much!

I love your crosswords and subscribe to the maximum number of issues, also buying the Large Print, Variety Puzzles, Cryptics and some of the Handy publications from my local newsagent. I got my addiction from my Mum, who passed away earlier this year, 4 months short of her 91st birthday, and who had only started to ‘lose her marbles’ in the last couple of years of her life - there’s confirmation that crosswords are good for our mental health! Now approaching 66, I won’t be giving up any time soon and expect to keep my little grey cells limber and lively for many more years, with your help!

Thank you for my prizes and all your hard work, giving me much enjoyment, many challenges and great relaxation!

Very best wishes
Jane Johnston
Kewarra Beach, Qld

Dust if you Must!

I have always loved poetry and over the years have collected poems of all sorts. The other day, I decided to have a good clean out and came across this poem. I thought you might get a laugh at ‘my version’ on the bottom!! Hope you enjoy it.

Lesly Adams
Avonsleigh, Vic
P.S. I don’t think I would have made a good poet!!

Dust if you must but wouldn’t it be better
To paint a picture, or write a letter
Bake a cake, or plant a seed
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must but there’s not much time
With rivers to swim and mountains to climb
Music to hear and books to read
Friends to cherish and a life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world’s out there
With the sun in your eyes and the wind in your hair
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind
Old age will come and it’s not kind
And when you go and go you must
You yourself will make more dust.

Remember a house becomes a home
When you can write I love you
On the furniture!!!

And ‘my version’

Dust if you must, but there is a lot of pleasure
In solving crosswords at your leisure
Leave the dust, and just for good measure
I will say Thank you Lovatts for being a National Treasure!!

THE EYES HAVE IT!

Thank you so much for selecting me as a Super Sudoku prize winner. I was very excited since I don’t tend to win anything in raffles or sweeps or whatever - in fact, the last thing I can remember winning was a side of lamb back in 1971.  That was more of a problem than a joy as we’d just bought a side of lamb and had a very small fridge!

Anyway, thanks again. I really enjoy each issue of the magazine. It gives me hours of pleasure. I don’t subscribe because I live in a small town and need to support the local newsagent.

I spent the money on saving two people’s sight through the Fred hollows Foundation, so the money did lots of good.

Jan Brennan
Vic

Never too late to learn

Regardless of what some people might say, our computer is simply another source of reference. It’s no different to any other, whether it be a dictionary, a thesaurus or an encyclopaedia, or whatever, so if I’ve got one and it finds an answer for me, I win, and I learn something new in the process.

This is what I like about cryptics. There’s no such thing as a cryptic dictionary. One just has to nut it out for oneself from the clue. As I said, very self satisfying. My wife reckons I have a twisted mind so I love telling her how I sorted out an answer from a very convoluted clue. Every compiler has their own individual style, but I haven’t been able to pick who’s who at Lovatts.

At 73 and my wife at 71, we are far too young to be losing it. My mother is 101 and as a high school teacher, librarian and craft teacher, she lead a very active life until dementia got the better of her.

Warwick Lloyd
Ravenshoe, Qld

Luckier than most

Well golly gee what can we say
Another prize from Lovatts has come our way!
The first prize last year was out of the blue,
The prize this year is just tickety-boo!
The compilers of puzzles are both clever and wise,
With so many prizes we just can’t believe our eyes!
We haven’t written this poem to brag or to boast,
Just to say we realise that we’re luckier than most!

Mr Mike & Mrs Christine Selvage
Thornlands, Qld

Puzzle addict and dictionary collector

You have indicated that you enjoy getting feedback so here is some. People who buy your books probably do so for many different reasons. I began years ago with Colossus. I wasn’t particularly good at crosswords then but, my son and I would sit and struggle through some clues at the breakfast table before he left for school. My daughter and I eventually learned together how to solve cryptic after her homework was finished. They are now 34 and 35 and still like to put in their tuppence worth in when passing.

 

Over the years I have become addicted to crosswords and subscribe to BIG, Colossus, Cryptic and Addoku which have been given as birthday, Christmas and anniversary presents. I like the challenges of some where I need to ponder over clues, the simplicity of others which I can do from beginning to end without any help and those which keep me occupied for hours of searching in my dictionaries and encyclopaedias. I try not to look up the internet but sometimes have to, as my knowledge of Greek mythology, scientific facts and inventors is a bit lacking but my husband surprisingly, hyas a memory like an elephant and soaks up facts like a sponge so I have to let him try first. He seems to know everything – it is so annoying!

 

Your books keep me company when I can’t get to sleep and Starhunts have a calming effect at 2 or 3am. My spelling has always been shocking but I can now spell colossus the correct way! I used to have a double ‘l’ instead of a double ‘s’. I have kept Papermate in business. There are a few more spellings of words I have improved on through the years and thanks to you, my vocabulary bank is a bit bigger. My favourites have been Skeleton and Krypton (which has sadly disappeared). You can’t please all the people all the time but you certainly try.

 

Because of your books, I have become a collector of dictionaries and encyclopaedias. I even have a nursing dictionary and also, one I bought at a swap meet, which belonged to someone in 1907 from my home town in Scotland. It is so old it does not have a print date and it has been elastoplasted (new word for you!) together on the cover. The owner wrote his name and the date inside.

 

I have tried three DIY competitions in my years and I find them to be so difficult. I just can’t imagine how you can churn out so many, month after month and not give yourself a great big, sore head. Thanks Christine and all your team. You are brilliant.
Margaret I Bowker
Thornlie, WA